Notes and Communications:

Two Notes on Egyptian Script

John Gee

Moroni, at the end of his father’s record, states, “we have written this record according to our knowledge, in the characters which are called among us the reformed Egyptian” (Mormon 9:32).1 Since the publication of this statement many suggestions have been made concerning the identification of the script.2 This note is intended to broaden the base of possibilities thus far considered by adding two hitherto unconsidered options.

Abnormal Hieratic Most discussions of reformed Egyptian deal with demotic.3 Yet “Demotic is . . . derived . . . from one of two hieratic styles used in Lower Egypt itself.”4 This other style of hieratic script, abnormal hieratic,5 has not received attention and ought at least to be considered in discussions of reformed Egyptian. Michel Malinine, who did the most work toward deciphering and publishing abnormal hieratic documents, did not like the term himself and preferred to call it “cursive thébaine tardive” (late Theban cursive)6 while Georg Möller preferred the term “späthieratische Kursive,”7 but Griffith’s term, “abnormal hieratic,” is the one that has stuck. “‘Abnormal hieratic’ represents the final stage of the development of cursive writing in the New Kingdom, which was elaborated and used in the southern half of Egypt and, in particular, at Thebes, and whose progressive changes can actually be followed, almost without interruption, from the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty until the penultimate reign of the Saite Dynasty.”8 An adaptation of hieratic characterized by “wild orthography,”9 abnormal hieratic in its second phase was used in Egypt mainly for legal and administrative purposes10 during the Twenty-fifth and Twenty-sixth Dynasties (727–548 B.C.),11 after which time it was replaced by demotic.12 Though abnormal hieratic is usually thought only to have been used in southern Egypt,13 it has now been dubiously argued that it was used in northern Egypt as well.14 Be that as it may, it is yet another modified Egyptian script available in Egypt in Lehi’s day.

Carved Hieratic It is important to realize also that demotic, like hieratic (and abnormal hieratic), was usually written with a brush on papyrus until Ptolemaic times (third century B.C.), when the Greek kalamos or reed pen began to be used.15 Hieratic from the beginning was a script adapted for brush on papyrus; for carving, hieroglyphics were used.16 After the conquest of Egypt by the Libyans ushered in the Twenty-first Dynasty,17 hieratic began to be used for carving in stone. During the Twenty-second Dynasty, hieratic stelae containing official royal decrees became common; but hieratic disappeared from official decrees with the archaizing fashion of the Saite Period (Twenty-sixth Dynasty).18 The ductus of hieratic (and demotic) that has been engraved is altered from that found on papyrus—carving tends to be more angular,19 while the brush adapts itself well to rounded forms—which makes it more difficult to read if one is not used to it. When engraved, hieratic and demotic are normally engraved in stone, but there are examples of demotic engraved into metal,20 including a bronze palette.21 Though, to my knowledge, no one has raised this objection before, it is worth noting that a tradition of engraving forms of cursive Egyptian is attested by Lehi’s day22 and that engraved forms of cursive do not necessarily coincide with those forms produced by brush and ink.

What follows are selected lists of documents in abnormal hieratic23 and carved hieratic24 and a selected bibliography of works dealing with abnormal hieratic.

Select Annotated Bibliography on Abnormal Hieratic el-Aguizy, Ola. “About the Origins of Early Demotic in Lower Egypt.” In Life in a Multi-Cultural Society: Egypt from Cambyses to Constantine and Beyond, ed. Janet H. Johnson, 91–102. Chicago: Oriental Institute, 1992. A discussion of the development of demotic and abnormal hieratic, arguing that abnormal hieratic was also available in the north, as evidenced in Louvre C101 and several Serapeum stelae.

Bakir, Abd el-Mohsen. Slavery in Pharaonic Egypt. Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie orientale, 1952. The standard discussion of Egyptian slavery, it is also the first publication of several abnormal hieratic slave transactions.

Cerny, Jaroslav, and Richard A. Parker. “An Abnormal Hieratic Tablet.” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 57 (1971): 127–31. The publication of a tablet dated archaeologically to the reign of Taharqa containing two sales and a discussion of grain measures in Egypt at this period of time.

Edwards, I. E. S. “Bill of Sale for a Set of Ushabtis.” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 57 (1971): 120–24. One of the few publications of an abnormal hieratic document from the first period of abnormal hieratic.

Griffith, F. Ll. “The Earliest Egyptian Marriage Contracts.” Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology 31 (1909): 212–20. The publication of the transcriptions of two marriage contracts in abnormal hieratic. Griffith had the uncanny ability to crack texts that no one else could; he here demonstrates it by the first transcription of abnormal hieratic texts.

Griffith, F. Ll. “An Early Contract Papyrus in the Vatican.” Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology 32 (1910): 5–10. The publication of an abnormal hieratic contract.

Hughes, George R. Saite Demotic Land Leases, 9–17. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952. The publication of an abnormal hieratic land lease among a collection of demotic land leases.

Malinine, Michel. “Trois documents de l’époque d’Amasis relatifs au louage de terres.” Revue d’Égyptologie 8 (1951): 127–50. Publication of three documents concerning the rental of parcels of land, one in early cursive demotic, one in abnormal hieratic, and one in early demotic.

Malinine, Michel. “Vente de tombes î l’époque saïte.” Revue d’Egyptologie 27 (1975): 164–74. The publication of two Saite period stelae containing the sale of tombs, one of which (Louvre C101) was thought to be in abnormal hieratic, which Malinine denies.

Parker, Richard A. A Saite Oracle Papyrus from Thebes in the Brooklyn Museum (Providence: Brown University Press, 1962), 1–34. Publication of an oracle papyrus in abnormal hieratic, with an excursus by Jaroslav Cerny on oracles that is the standard work on ancient Egyptian oracles.

Spiegelberg, Wilhelm. Die demotischen Denkm ler, 3 vols. Leipzig: Druglin, 1904; Strassburg: Fischbach, 1906; Strassburg: Schauberg, 1908; Berlin: Reichsdruckerei, 1932. Part of the Catalogue général des antiquités égyptiennes du Musée du Caire, this important corpus of demotic material includes several papyri in abnormal hieratic. (There are three volumes, volume two comes in two parts; all parts have been published by different publishers.)

Thissen, Heinz-Josef. “Chronologie der frühdemotischen Papyri.” Enchoria 10 (1980): 105–25. A Chronology of all 186 early demotic papyri including 42 abonormal hieratic documents that had been published to that point.

Vleeming, Sven P. “The Sale of a Slave in the Time of Pharaoh Py.” Ouheidkundige mededelingen uit het Rijksmuseum van Oudheden te Leiden 40 (1980): 1–17. The publication of what some consider to be the earliest abnormal hieratic document, P. Leiden F 1942/5.15, also including an overview of all abnormal hieratic documents published to that date.

1. Moroni explicitly says that the term reformed Egyptian refers to the script rather than the language. I have dealt with the distinction between language and script in John Gee, “La Trahison des Clercs: On the Language and Translation of the Book of Mormon,” Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 6/1 (1994): 79–82, 94–99.

2. A convenient summary of the suggestions is found in William J. Hamblin, “Reformed Eyptian” (Provo, UT: FARMS, 1995).

3. Hugh Nibley, Lehi in the Desert, The World of the Jaredites, There Were Jaredites (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and FARMS, 1988), 15; Stephen E. Thompson, review of Southwestern American Indian Rock Art and the Book of Mormon, by James R. Harris, Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 4 (1992): 75–76.

4. Ola el-Aguizy, “About the Origins of Early Demotic in Lower Egypt,” in Life in a Multi-Cultural Society: Egypt from Cambyses to Constantine and Beyond, ed. Janet H. Johnson (Chicago: Oriental Institute, 1992), 94.

17. The importance of this for Old Testament history can hardly be understated. Without the problems caused by its western and southern flanks (Libya and Nubia), Egypt would certainly have pursued its traditional course of dominating the Levantine littoral, which would not have allowed either a united or a divided Israelite monarchy; the Israelites would have forever been fighting the Egyptians rather than the Philistines. For Egypt’s foreign policy, see Donald B. Redford, Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), a book unfortunately marred by the author’s obvious hostility toward the Bible and the religions that sprang therefrom.

18. For a recent study of the archaizing tendency of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, see Peter Der Manuelian, Living in the Past: Studies in Archaism of the Egyptian Twenty-sixth Dynasty (London: Kegan Paul International, 1994). This tendency is normally noted in the art of the period; see Gay Robins, Proportion and Style in Ancient Egyptian Art (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994), 256–57. Although the archaizing tendency of art is normally associated with the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, it started earlier in the Twenty-fifth Dynasty; ibid., 160; W. Stevenson Smith, The Art and Architecture of Ancient Egypt, rev. William Kelly Simpson (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), 408.

23. In 1953 Malinine knew of about 150 documents in early demotic and abnormal hieratic, of which about thirty at most had been published; Malinine, Choix des textes juridiques, 1:iv. He said there were about forty texts in abnormal hieratic; ibid., 1:ix.

24. This does not include incised hieratic ostraca that came to my attention too late to be included.

25. Conversion of the dates to our calendar here, and generally through the article follow those of Kenneth A. Kitchen, The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt (1100–650 B.C.), 2nd ed. (Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1986). The format for the Egyptian date where given is taken from the Egyptian date formula of the documents themselves, using Egyptian format. Thus the date 17.1.smw.13 Psammetichus I means: year 17, first month of harvest (summer), day 13 of Psammetichus I. Restorations are in brackets.

27. I. E. S. Edwards, “Bill of Sale for a Set of Ushabtis,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 57 (1971): 120-24; Malinine, “L’hiératique anormal,” 35. Almost any king of the Twenty-first Dynasty could fit this date.

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